Re: .gitignore, .gitattributes, .gitmodules, .gitprecious?,.gitacls? etc.

["Dmitry Kakurin" <dmitry.kakurin@gmail.com>]

On 9/5/07, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> "Dmitry Kakurin" <dmitry.kakurin@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I assert that since index does not have .gitattributes the one from
> > local directory should not be used.
> >
> > Think about dedicated build machine scenario: I have a machine that
> > always does sync + build. After every sync the local directory should
> > always be identical to what-was-committed.
>
> Thinking about the reason _why_ .gitattributes may be updated,
> one would notice that it is because somebody did this command
> sequence:
>
>        git checkout            ;# now work tree is clean
>        edit .gitattributes     ;# modify the attributes of a file
>        edit file               ;# edit the file attributes talks about
>        git add file            ;# this can be affected by .gitattributes
>        git add .gitattributes  ;# this is changed in the same commit
>        git commit
>
> Now, should we always take .gitattributes from the index?
No, from couple of my emails back:

> This leads to a simple idea that mostly works:
> 1. when files are moved from index to filesystem, then only .gitattributes in the index is used, if it's not there == no special attributes.
> 2. when files are moved from filesystem to index, then only .gitattributes in filesystem is used, again if it's not there == no special attributes.
>
> Then, in any operation, only one .gitattributes is taken into account.

This is a must-do change (IMHO).

To go one step further (again IMHO) is to eliminate workspace version
of .gitattributes all together:
> We could stop here, but to me this redundancy still has some room for confusion and looks unnecessary.
> Plus there is still room for unintentional abuse (by mistake).
> That's why I think it's a good idea to always have only one .gitattributes (in the index).

-- 
- Dmitry